Apple CEO Tim Cook On Apple's US Manufacturing Move

We mentioned a few days back the "Assembled in America" tag showing up on some models of Apple's iMac. Nerval's Lobster points out that in a new interview with Bloomberg Businessweek, Apple CEO Tim Cook offered some details on what that means: "'Next year we are going to bring some production to the U.S. on the Mac,' Cook told the magazine. 'We've been working on this for a long time, and we were getting closer to it. It will happen in 2013. We're really proud of it. We could have quickly maybe done just assembly, but it's broader because we wanted to do something more substantial.' He also had comments about Android and current litigation against Samsung and others."

Comments

Smart PR move

[Anonymous Coward]

It may reduce their margins (minutely), but it will give them an immediate response to any allegations of massive offshoring of labor or anti-American sentiment. It's a relatively small investment for them that could pay tremendous returns. Smart, Apple, very smart.

Re:Smart PR move

[Dupple]

It'll be a Foxconn plant though, not an Apple one.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-12-06/foxconn-plans-american-expansion-as-clients-seek-made-in-u-s-a-.html

Re:PR gimmic, if your cynical

[Kohlrabi82]

If they bring [...] jobs back

I knew that Apple was an evil company, but I didn't know they dabbled in necromancy.

What would you have preferred to see?

[Brannon]

Here are your options:

1. Manufacturing in the USA, with manufacturing using robots, creating low thousands of well-paid jobs for Americans.

2. Manufacturing in China using hundreds of thousands of low-paid Chinese jobs.

3. Manufacturing in the USA without robots, but with hundreds of thousands of minimum-wage part-time jobs--and all Apple products increase in price by 30%.

Apple is currently doing #2 and transitioning to #1. Are you really upset that they didn't pick #3?

Re:What would you have preferred to see?

[AmiMoJo]

Right, but the problem is that the minimum wage is too low because people can't live reasonably on it. That leads them to do two jobs with no time left to look after the kids, or to be dependent on benefits/tax credits to survive, and to have little disposable income to drive consumer spending.

There will always be unskilled jobs and people without marketable skills to fill them, but we need those jobs to offer a viable life to the employee or society breaks.

This is good news! Good for Apple.

[sdsucks]

1) So what if it's a PR move? It's still a good move for Americans - no matter what.
2) So what if it's a Foxconn factory? Of course it will be one - Apple is NOT a manufacturing company, but they do work *very* closely with their manufacturers.
3) So what if it's a mostly robotic factory? This IS the future of manufacturing in all countries - accept it, and accept that even robotic factories are better than none for the local economy.

Seriously, how are so many of you trying to spin this negatively? And why?

Apple is doing this

[SuperKendall]

Apple could demand better adherence to US standards in the Foxconn plants making their products.

Apple is doing this, they already demanded less overtime of workers and better enforcement of restrictions against child labor. And then they brought in an independent firm to audit this happening and asked FoxConn to allow them access.

The real question is, why is NO other company doing this.

Things are obviously not perfect at FoxConn but Apple is trying to make them better, in a way that anyone can keep track of. No other company is providing any kind of visibility into these issues.